Undefined
by Rayn12
Summary: Rukia is not always sure what to think of Ichigo. Oneshot. I don't own Bleach.


It is, without a doubt, the strangest relationship she's ever had. She can't decide if she feels more like his mother or his sister, his teacher or his friend. Every so often there are flashes of other things, too, echoes and other ways of being that glimmer in the depths of her mind, but she tries not to look too hard at them. They can wait for now.

Half the time she wants to kill him; he reminds her of Renji that way. Stubborn, hot-headed idiots, the pair of them: quick to fight, always ready to take on the world. Stray dog, Renji calls himself when there is no one around to scorn him for it, and Ichigo has a trace of that, too, for all the comforts of his soft, human life-- comforts the ragged orphans of Inuzuri couldn't remember well enough to even dream about. Sometimes she tries to picture a life in which Ichigo stayed soft, in which he doesn't scowl at all existence and his mother's hands still lay the table and fold his clothes, a life in which his biggest worries are girls and late homework. She can't do it. He is not a man destined for softness. He is a protector, his hollow protests about risking his life for strangers notwithstanding. The hunger, the need in him to defend could have come from a hundred other beginnings, but there was no world in which it would not have been born.

He's like Renji, too, in the comfortable, teasing_, family_ feel of their down time, between all the rushing around facing death. She'd missed that, haunting the cold, silent halls of the Kuchiki manor for the last forty years. Missed it like she would miss sunlight. And Ichigo has, in a devious and welcome twist of fate, brought Renji back to her as well. Her life is starting to thaw between their twin fires, one to each side, warming and guarding and fueling her against the increasingly forbidding future. She loves them both for that, even if they are uncultured, overconfident buffoons from time to time.

He has given her Byakuya, too, although he doesn't know it. It had taken Shinso piercing through her adopted brother's armored layers, stripping away all his reserves, to let her see Byakuya's heart the first time, and it was Ichigo's example that freed Byakuya from his self-imposed prison so that he would be there to be pierced. An odd thing to be grateful for, to be sure, but she is. Since then she has learned to look past the stoic silences and neutral façade, to scry for the meaning in her brother's inscrutable glances, and she is amazed at what she has found. She can see his heart without dissection now. Without Ichigo she would never have known where to look, and 40 years of stilted, silent efforts might have turned into 400 without either of them managing to approach the other or beginning to understand. It was almost a tragedy.

She has had enough of tragedy.

He has Kaien's face, a fact that hadn't hit her until he stood before her on a dark street, resolved to punch a Hollow to death if that was all he could do to protect his family. Without that resemblance it might never have occurred to her to share her powers, and they might both be dead now. He has Kaien's steel and spirit, too, without which they still might have died that night, would have died a hundred times over since. They are so alike that sometimes she still wonders… she has a theory. But there are differences, too. She never thought of Kaien as a son, and sometimes she can't help it with Ichigo. After all, she was the one who brought him into this second world, into the truth of gods and monsters. Her blood, her pain, her power rushing from the depths of her soul to create a new being, a shinigami where there had once been only a human boy. Sometimes that memory feels like a death to her, her blade piercing all of Ichigo's hopes for happiness, safety, a normal life... but more often now it feels like a birth. And he had been, still often is, so exasperatingly, endearingly clueless. She is nearly 150, which doesn't seem that old to her, but he is only 15. She has taught him, protected him, watched him grow… lectured and beat the hell out of him when he needed it. The inverse of her relationship with Kaien-dono. Perhaps he looked on her as she looks on Ichigo. She likes to think her growth made him proud the same way. It makes the end a little more bearable, too; if someone ever has to kill her, to hold her and cry for her as she dies, she has a short list of candidates for the job. Ichigo is one of them.

For now, improbable as it is, they are both alive. More and more often she finds herself watching in awe as he surpasses her, as he defies every limit, as he does the impossible simply because he believes that he must. He is a catalyst, a magnet, altering everyone that he touches, and she wonders what else he will come to be if he goes on like this. At this moment, though, the fate of the world is not on his shoulders, the lives of his friends not in his hands. Right now he is a boy, hugging his sister Yuzu in one arm and decking his over-exuberant father with the other as the family celebrates Karin's goal (and the fact that she didn't behead the opposing goalie with the ball to get it). Just a high school guy at his kid sister's soccer game. He grins at her, a smile that is half good-time-with-good-friends and half battle cry. Karin uses that one, too, and Rukia spares the opposing team a moment's pity before deftly freeing her straw and plunging it into her juice box. She sips the cool beverage gratefully, an antidote to the day's hot sun. After the game there is an ice cream party with school friends at Orihime's; if they are feeling very bold indeed they may have dinner there as well. Orihime would like that, so they probably will. They will talk late into the night, maybe take a stroll by the river. At some point three or four of the friends will likely split off for half an hour, to cleanse a monster and send a burdened spirit on to a fresh start. Once that would have been surreal, but now it's far less disconcerting than whatever Orihime will find to put on the menu. The humans no longer fret over monsters, and Rukia no longer marvels at having… friends. Family. Partners. Whatever they have become. The definition doesn't matter. What matters is that they are strong enough to stand with her and survive. Rukia will no longer be left alone.

It's strange; strange and beautiful and rich and warm. It will probably get weirder from here, and that doesn't bother her anymore either.


End file.
